


clouds in my coffee

by hedgebitch



Category: Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: Diners, Gen, Not Canon Compliant, Road Trips, antics, technically it WAS compliant when i started before season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-15 22:35:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29690973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hedgebitch/pseuds/hedgebitch
Summary: With only a few hundred miles left between him and Gotham, Dick takes a moment to regroup his thoughts about going home. Or, maybe it'd be more accurate to say hetriesto take a moment—present company considered.Another fic in my unofficial “I don’t care about canon, I just like roadtrips and shitty coffee” series.
Relationships: Background Dick Grayson/Koriand'r
Comments: 7
Kudos: 34





	clouds in my coffee

Dick grabs the salt shaker as Rachel reaches for the sugar—usually he’s fine just drinking his coffee black, but he thinks it might actually break Rachel’s brain to watch him salt his coffee, so he’s willing to make a departure from the usual routine.

They’re at a—a Denny’s, maybe? He usually tries to stay awake when Kory’s driving, on the off chance that Donna Summer comes on the radio and she crashes the car in a fit of ecstasy, but uh. He hadn’t exactly spent much time sleeping at the last motel she’d bullied him into stopping at. Well, wherever they are, it’s got an overbearing hostess and nasty omelettes, and it’s just off I80, with about three hours left before they’ll start passing signs pointing them towards Gotham.

All three kids direct their focus towards his mug, watching him shake salt in with—trepidation? disgust? fear? They do a decent job of maintaining their previous body language, but Jason’s the only one who remembers to continue picking the tomato slices out of the second half of his BLT, and he proceeds to immediately ruin that effort to look unconcerned by openly grimacing when Dick takes a sip.

“Ew,” Rachel says decisively, which Gar punctuates by making a show of pushing away his hashbrown/veggie concoction, as if he’s too disgusted to keep eating.

“I mean, I get it for tea,” Jason allows. “But that shit’s gross and you need therapy.”

Gar turns on Jason, sounding actively horrified. “You _get it_ for _tea_?” 

“It counteracts the bitterness of the tannins!” Jason insists, followed up by a dismissive “Pussy.”

Dick’s almost willing to let it slide in favour of asking Jason what the fuck he thinks makes coffee bitter, if not also tannins, but Kory reaches over to grab a grape out of Gar’s fruit bowl and pelt Jason with it, which is, if nothing else, a solution. Of course, the grape has to bounce off of Jason’s face and onto what’s left of Rachel’s waffle, which leads to loud protests on Rachel’s part that Kory has to step in to shut down.

“We’ve been trapped in a car together for—how many hours? No one’s catching any cooties they haven’t already caught. Show some maturity, guys.”

“Strong words from the woman who started throwing food,” Dick points out, and she kicks him under the table—hard enough to bruise, but whether she intended that or just forgot how strong she is is anyone’s guess.

Conversation turns, eventually, to a veritable “who’s who” of Gotham. Jason’s been more forthcoming about their hometown than Dick has, but Gar still has a plethora of questions as to what’s more urban than legend. Dick lets Jason take over answering after one or two, and Jason seems all-too-happy to comply, making only minorly wild exaggerations.

He tunes out the rest of the conversation, starts up on some mental math instead—they’re three hours from Gotham now, assuming Jersey police haven’t suddenly decided to start caring about beltway speed limits. With any luck, this’ll be a quick weekend trip—even if it is a wednesday. Forty eight hours, plus the three to get there, and then he won’t have to think about Bruce, about Gotham or any of its bullshit for—for as long as he can manage.

“Been a hot minute since you brought a girl home to Bruce, huh?” Jason asks with a smirk when he catches Dick lost in thought, the little bastard. Gar and Rachel choke on their tea and coffee—come to think of it, Dick’s pretty sure Rachel’s drinking more sugar than coffee at this point—respectively, and Kory pointedly turns to stare out the window as if there’s a fuckin’ fairground in the Denny’s parking lot, leaving Dick to the wolves.

“We’re not—she’s not—I’m not—” Dick tries, then gives up after the third false start. “Kory, help me out here.”

“Hm?” Kory replies, eyes locked right about where Dick would place the ferris wheel attendant. It’d be a more convincing display if she weren’t shaking slightly with laughter.

Dick looks back to Jason, who’s waggling his eyebrows in a way that has Dick feeling outright uncomfortable, and takes a moment to debate the likelihood of having unknowingly developed the ability to spontaneously self-combust.

It doesn’t happen, not even when he closes his eyes and tries _really_ hard.

Out of the corner of his eye, Dick spots their waitress heading over, coffee pot in hand, and quickly chugs what’s left in his mug so he can get a refill before they pay the check and head out.

“That tears it,” Gar insists with an over dramatic leap to his feet, which, really? People are going to stare. 

“People are going to stare,” Dick points out, which does nothing to end Gar’s antics. 

“Whatever. I’m gonna go wait in the car, away from your gross seawater bean juice.”

He holds out a hand expectantly, and before Dick can even attempt to pretend he won’t hand over the car keys, Gar catches them in a toss from Jason, which, what the fuck. 

“Nice,” Rachel says, possibly the first compliment Dick’s ever heard her give the kid.

Jason is apparently less impressed by this, or maybe more impressed by their waitress, because he ignores Rachel in favour of saying an uncharacteristically polite “yes, ma’am” when the server offers to refill his coffee. 

Rachel and Kory head off to the car—but Jason hangs back. He looks uncharacteristically unsure of himself, and for a moment Dick sees the version of Jason that Trigon threw into his head, worries he’s going to tell him some awful news about Bruce. 

“I was just asking,” Jason says, more bite than bark. “About Kory, I mean. You don’t have to flip your shit everytime I bring up the fact that you exist as a person.”

“I didn’t ‘flip my shit,’” Dick protests. 

“Yeah, whatever,” Jason brushes off the conversation he himself started and leaves Dick to handle the bill alone. 

It occurs to Dick, as he walks off from the host’s stand—which is to say, several minutes later than it should have occurred to him—that Jason might have his own reasons to ask about the girls he has or hasn’t brought home to Bruce over the years. 

For all his bluster, the kid hasn’t brought up any girls, though. Hasn’t really brought up any friends at all. 

Okay, so maybe Rachel hasn’t either, and maybe Gar’s “friends” include the brain of a former racecar driver shoved into a tin suit. But Rachel’s a young teenage girl with a tragic backstory involving a death cult, and Gar’s from—well, circumstances. But Jason’s older than both of them, and Bruce knows enough to know the kid needs friends. 

Well. At least that’ll give him a bit of ammunition when the old man inevitably decides it’s time to start pouring salt into old wounds like it’s dry rub on chicken cutlets.

**Author's Note:**

> title from you're so vain by carly simon. as always feel free to come yell at me on tumblr @[barbarawilson](https://barbarawilson.tumblr.com). also, like i said, i started this before season 2 and therefore i'm immune to any and all criticism regarding that pesky little thing called "the plot"


End file.
